Lindsey Wasson | Reuters
Amazon founder and CEO Jeff Bezos speaks at the new Amazon Spheres opening event at Amazon’s Seattle headquarters in Seattle, Washington, U.S., January 29, 2018.
Amazon is laying off hundreds of employees and “managing out” others as the company consolidates its retail operations and expands tech gadgets like Alexa, according to a Monday report in the Seattle Times.
The job cuts are focused on Amazon’s Seattle headquarters but also affect hundreds elsewhere, the report said.
While Amazon supports thousands of jobs, the layoffs are in sharp contrast to its rapid expansion over the past few years. Other Amazon businesses, like Zappos and Createspace, are also slashing jobs, the report said.
Amazon was not immediately available to respond to CNBC’s request for comment, but told the Seattle Times: “As part of our annual planning process, we are making head count adjustments across the company — small reductions in a couple of places and aggressive hiring in many others,” a spokesman said. “For affected employees, we work to find roles in the areas where we are hiring.”
The layoffs follow a rumored hiring freeze put in place late last year. In December, it was reported that Amazon was sharply cutting down on hiring, the first sign of a slowdown in Amazon’s rapid expansion over the past few years. Amazon also had the smallest number of open positions from August to December of last year, making it the slowest hiring four-month period for Amazon in King County.
The change in Amazon’s hiring plan comes as the e-commerce giant seeks the location for its second headquarters. Amazon has drawn 238 bids from 54 different regions across North America for the second headquarters, and has narrowed it down to 20 finalists last month. Amazon said the winning city will get over $5 billion in investment and employ over 50,000 people.
